


Something Digs Away in Your Pain

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, Gender Identity, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Will Byers, Post-Season/Series 02, Queer Themes, Slow Burn, Will Byers Is Eighteen Years Old
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 16:34:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20439107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: He gets the news while in line at the post office. An after-school errand for his mom. Just another Tuesday.Post-S2 AU. Billy Hargrove comes back to Hawkins, which Will doesn't find comforting in the least.(Rating may likely change. More tags to come.)





	Something Digs Away in Your Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Destroy Me" by Wolf Alice.

He gets the news while in line at the post office. An after-school errand for his mom. Just another Tuesday.

Mrs Brown stumbles all over herself to tell half the people in line Billy Hargrove is back in town while Will, in the midst of receiving the news out of the blue, an unwarranted spill of information he never asked for to begin with, stares ahead at nothing at all for far too long.

Throat clenching, he wills his hands to stop shaking. Mouth too dry, he blinks back the immediate and utter panic.

These days, he isn't forcing himself to like normal things. As far as he's concerned, Billy Hargrove is far from normal himself. If he's remembering correctly, he's also just as likely to beat the shit out of anyone for daring to look his way, for daring to exist in the same space. Will can hear the slurs and broken crockery crashing against skulls already.

*

Billy used to be about savage muscle cars and girls in the backseat and boots stomping faces into the ground. Will is the very opposite, in all the ways which matter, besides being unwilling to become bullying material for the likes of Hargrove.

After all, he's on a countdown to graduation and art school on the East Coast, to cramped college dorms and crappy cafeteria food and inflexible deadlines. Jonathan tells him he's gonna love it all, and he's probably right. Indiana is no place for the likes of him. It never was.

*

Will's not calling Max a liar, but he'd love it if she stopped lying to him about Billy having changed into an upstanding member of society or whatever, thanks. They're sharing the last of her menthols and her mom's leftover wine, and all this Billy bullshit is crapping on his buzz like nobody's business.

"Like, for real he's changed. Not, like, into a decent human person, but, like." She sighs and licks her lips pensively, eyes flickering around them. "You wouldn't get it." Are they even talking about the same person here?

Of course Will doesn't get it, because if Billy's different, then he's definitely worse.

"Why would I get it? He's your asshole brother who beats people for existing." That's a fact. Ask Steve Harrington.

It's been four years, coming on five now, and he wasn't technically there, but he's heard the story of that night far too many times, usually from Dustin. Steve doesn't like talking about it. Will wouldn't either.

"Not anymore."

"How would you know? He's been living in another state for the past four years." Another actual fact. The postcards from Cali don't lie.

"He's totally different. Still kinda sad, but not, like, in a bad way where he hurts people." She shrugs and takes another swing of Mrs Mayfield's shitty red, but beggars can't be choosers.

Billy Hargrove's a lot of things; _sad_ is maybe the wrong word for any of them. Will's slight buzz is turning into a headache the more he thinks about it, so he doesn't.

"Why's he back, though?" The whole of Hawkins has been wondering, and Will's no different. Small towns and gossip.

Max chews on the inside of her cheek for a long moment. "It's complicated."

"OK." He's been putting off asking what he needs to ask, but. He has to. It's Thursday already. The week flew by. "Should I even show up tomorrow night?"

"Mom loves you."

"For all the strangest reasons."

"Yeah, probably." Will gives her a look because Max is now definitely deflecting. "Don't show up if you don't want to, but Billy won't bother you. He keeps mostly to himself." Eyebrow cocked and sort of mocking in that way she has, but also fond whenever she speaks of her brother.

Will knows that's how she is, got the good end of the deal on all counts, though she is hanging out by a deserted quarry, getting sloppy-drunk and smoking stolen cigarettes with a fag who wears make-up and dresses sometimes, so who knows if that's even true.

He feels like he needs to say something so she doesn't think he won't show up at all. Can't have her making a fuss over him all day at school tomorrow. That's somehow worse. He settles for, "Sure," even though he's feeling anything but.

*

On Friday night, he changes his mind about bringing the extras about half a dozen times. But it's not as if he's biking to Cherry for Mrs Mayfield's chicken casserole, and thus ends up leaning distractedly into their doorbell with a sore jaw from grinding his teeth the entire way to Max's house.

He doesn't run into Billy Hargrove even once the entire time he's there, even though he excuses himself to use the bathroom twice during dinner and Max asks him up to her room afterwards for two hours of extracurriculars he has to nervously wash off in the hall bathroom before heading back home.

The Camaro is parked out front when he jumps on his bike and they would've heard it start up during dinner and from Max's bedroom overlooking the front of the house, so Billy is, presumably, indeed "keeping to himself". Will endeavours to do the same.

Like, who wouldn't be avoiding Billy Hargrove, as a rule?

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com), if you want to go over and scream at me to get my arse in gear and write more stuff.


End file.
